


Sentry Duty

by justbolts



Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Community: tf_speedwriting, Gen, Humor, Pre-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:12:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbolts/pseuds/justbolts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jolt gets sentry duty out in the middle of nowhere.   It's as exciting as can be expected.</p><p>(Originally posted in 2011 for the tf_speedwriting prompt "Too much time on my hands")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentry Duty

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was previously shared on Livejournal. This is a re-post for organizational purposes.
> 
> Written in not-so-fond memory of "that one summer" when I was a teenager.

They'd warned him that sentry duty was going to be difficult. That he'd have limited contact with other mechs and would be spending all of his time alone and away from the action.

Jolt had nodded along agreeable and waved off all concerns. Sure, it'd be lonely. Sure, he'd have to be constantly paying attention to the monitoring systems. Sure, not much happened out in that end of the galaxy.... actually, that part kind of sucked and he'd be lying if he said that he didn't have grand visions of spotting some Decepticon force trying to sneak in the back way.

But possible Decepticon force or not, his commander had picked him for this duty. Hand chosen him for the purpose of... of sitting out alone on a satellite in the aft end of nowhere, away from any kind of...

No, no, that was the wrong way to think of it. His commander had picked Jolt because he trusted him and Jolt was going to live up to that trust, no matter what.

And at first, it was actually pretty nice. Jolt had never been the most social of mechs and the arrangements on the ship had always meant that they were tucked in together bumper to aft most of the time. Personal space and free time were at a premium.

Now though, outside of cleaning and re-calibrating the sensors on a set schedule and maintaining the station, Jolt had a great deal of both.

He spent the first orn after the ship had left driving circle all up and around the satellite. It wasn't a huge planetoid by any stretch, but it had a pleasantly low level of gravity and some nice deep, twisting tunnels to explore. He managed to get some decent air time, too, jumping over rock structures. Afterwards, he gave himself a through and lengthy wash down in the stations washracks -- being careful of how much resources he used while doing so, of course -- without having to share with anyone else or hurry up for mechs waiting behind him, then settled down on the biggest berth he could find for a good, long recharge.

Well, okay, a partial recharge at least. He was remotely connected to the stations monitoring equipment so that it could alert him the instant anything came into range, but since it would take time him for him to get out of a recharge and time was precious, the system was also calibrated to started harassing him if he went too deep under.

It was a nice partial recharge, at least. And he took as long as he wanted at it. No duty shifts he had to run off for, no having to roll out early in order to give someone else a chance to lay down. Then, once he came fully back online, he could take his time getting up, or he could just choose not to get up at all. It was great. Like a big long vacation, just for him.

Two megacycles in, he was ready for it to be over.

He'd read every bookfile and watched every vid that the crew had left for him. He'd explored every canyon and jumped every rock. He knew the layout of the station itself inside and out. He'd taken more naps than he cared to count and would really be up for a full, proper recharge now, even just a short one spent partially wedged up under Bulkhead's over sized chassis.

"How's it going?" his commander had asked when the drop ship arrived with supplies one megacyle after that.

It was only pride that had Jolt saying "Oh, it's fine, just great, I've really enjoyed the break" instead of "please take me back with you".

His commander had looked at him knowingly and left behind a pile of old equipment needing repair and a holographic light painting set Sunstreaker had donated.

By the second time the drop ship came back, the painting set had become his new best friend.

By the fourth supply drop, he'd named all the canyons, major land marks, and every room in the monitoring station. The Backward Tangle was his favorite, followed by the Gearbox, Ironhide's Aft, and the Best Star Watching Spot.

He realized he wasn't very good at naming things.

By the sixth drop, he had started up a rock collection and then a rock carving collection, both of which his commander and friends assured him were "very nice" and tolerantly accepted pieces as gifts.

"It's almost over," his commander assured him when Jolt showed every indication of following them back onto the drop ship.

Three orn later, one of the sensors pinged him about an approaching object and Jolt spent several desperately exciting joor determining that it was just a comet. Since it was the most adventurous thing yet to happen to him, he rewrote the report five times, just to make sure he'd captured every single detail.

He spent quite a while after that feeling very sorry for himself.

After the seventh drop, he stopped in the middle of naming the individual rocks in his collection to write his commander a message, apologizing profusely for whatever he'd done to upset him.

Finally, finally, the alert came that his mission was ending, his replacement was on the way, and he could return to the rest of the crew. Most everyone politely restrained from "I told you so's" and put up with his enthusiasm to be home.

Sunstreaker never did forgive him for the hug, though.


End file.
